in the Jews' Trump takes upon him to be dealer in musick." In the following century Thomas Randolph wrote:
| O, let me hear some silent song |
| Tun'd by the Jews' trump of they tongue. |
| (The Conceited Peddler.) |
About fifty years later Thomas Otway in his 'Friendship in Fashion' represents one of the actors, 'Malagene,' pulling out a Jews' trump and playing a tune. (1685.) Some wiseacre, seeking the derivation of Jews' trump, makes the suggestion that it is a corruption of jeu-de-trompe, but the guess loses much force owing to the simple fact that this expression does not occur in French.
In 'Hakluyt's Voyages'[1] the instrument is called simply 'Jewes-harpe.' The early explorers found these toys very advantageous as articles for trading with the aborigines; the barter of 'hatchets, knives and jews-harps' is mentioned by E. Duddeley, in 1595, and one year later Sir Walter Raleigh wrote of the same people: 'Wee should send them Jewes-Harpes, for they would give for every one two Hennes.'
These baubles were also acceptable to the natives of Guiana in South America; E. Harcourt names them in connection with beads and knives. This trade with the aborigines of the western continent has continued until modern times; Mr. Joseph D. McGuire refers to it in connection with his description of a pipe of catlinite carved in form of a jewsharp.[2]
In Bailey's Dictionary, which dates from the eighteenth century, the term is jewstrump, and in Teesdale's 'Glossary' still another synonym is used, 'gew-gaw'; this last name is also used for a kind of flute in Scotland.
This humble instrument of music, treasured chiefly by semi-civilized races and by children of intellectual nations, is but rarely mentioned in print, as its mediocre qualities give it no prominence in musical circles, and toys are seldom subjects of discussion. Sir Thomas Brown states that a brass jewsharp richly gilded was found in an ancient Norwegian urn; this suggests great antiquity, a point which will be discussed later.
In the report of those horrible witch trials conducted in the reign of James VI. of Scotland, in 1591, the 'grave and matron-like' Agnes Sampson and the poor servant Gellie Duncan play conspicuous and melancholy parts. After horrible tortures, Agnes confessed that Gellie, Dr. Fian and herself, with upwards of two hundred witches, used to assemble at midnight in a kirk, where they were joined by the devil himself, who incited them to murder the king. On these occasions the devil always liked to have a little music, and Gellie Duncan used to play a reel on a trump, or jewsharp, while all the witches danced. And at another time when a large number of witches marched in procession
